Resolutions

1.    Eat more
2.    Listen then yell
3.    Find a cure for laziness
5.    Stop compounding false impressions
6.    Lower stress by breaking resolutions faster
7.    Unblock the slow moving stream of debris in my head
8.    Develop an app that replaces texting with seeing someone
9.    Reduce conflict by arguing less with people who aren’t there
10.  Regularly ask myself what I can do now to avoid getting pissed off at         myself later (hey, a cure for laziness ..scratch no. 3 off the list)

Reception

In 1998, psychologist Arthur Graesser examined components of speech and reading comprehension in ‘real-time’. See [Einstein’s Dreams]. Components of comprehension include things like ‘unexpected event-handling’ and ‘outcome-resolution’. They are measured in milliseconds. Using an interactive computer-presentation, he recorded the time students spent at each step. Sort of like a reaction-time study. What he found was counter-intuitive. Comprehension scores were actually higher for students who took longer to process unexpected events in a narrative. Students who spent less time had lower scores. On closer examination, he found they were interpreting events way too quickly. Consequently, they were missing the bridge to ‘explanatory’ events presented elsewhere in the narrative. What this tells me is that receptivity is more important than reaching conclusions while listening to someone speak.

Academic freedom

The other day students asked me why we waste money on research that doesn’t have immediate medical or commercial value. It was a fair question. I told them I thought it was because progress often depends on research that was originally done for non-commercial purposes ..like scientific advancement. The Internet came to mind. The Internet and all the social networking and businesses it hosts ..did not start out as a texting or commercial enterprise. It was an experiment that relied on research coming out of fields such as cybernetics and neuropsychology. The head of the project was a psychologist from MIT named Joseph Licklider [link]. He was a leading expert on the nature of the auditory system. His research involved understanding the way signals travel across the nervous system and get converted to sound by the auditory centers in the brain. His findings became the basis for ‘packet switching’ in computer networks, without which the Internet would have never progressed much farther than the telephone [link]. These studies were not originally intended for use by the computer industry ..nor were they funded by drug companies. The Internet would have never come about through corporate sponsorship alone. That’s the reason why scientific inquiry needs to be conducted in a neutral setting.

Conspiracy theory

It was the intention of the Bush administration to raise unemployment and drive more middle-class citizens to lower economic classes. They felt it was necessary to get middle-class Americans to accept lower wages. Lower wages mean lower prices and greater demand for American-made products, which helps balance the trade deficit. Reduced purchasing power also means less tolerance for high-priced foreign oil, which helps domestic oil companies expand their operations into coastal waters as well as wildlife sanctuaries. Furthermore, they figured it would discourage fanatics from developing renewable energy sources. A larger class of low paid workers creates greater competition for low-paying jobs. Greater competition for low-paying jobs is how you get the job market to deal with immigration. Fear of foreign workers helps Republicans enact tougher immigration laws ..like denying immigrants any chance of citizenship, which also goes for their American-born, college-educated children ..as well as those serving in the military. Another advantage of the politics of fear is that it helps Republicans win elections. That’s probably what helped Republicans gain control of Congress. Records show that the more support there is for republican issues in congress ..the more cutbacks you can expect to see in public education (especially in the form of federal grants and student aid). Cutbacks such as these deny middle-class access to higher education. What was their intention ..? To create a larger pool of low-cost labor. These advantages are short-term however, and the cycle will turn. When the disparity becomes so great that higher education becomes a luxury only the wealthy can afford, they might as well shut down the state universities ..there aren’t enough wealthy students to go around. When the GOP cuts all ties with the Latino community, and their efforts at stemming immigration fail (because it’s like trying to stop water) ..they’ll have succeeded in creating a larger population of democratic voters. And when support from the rural Midwest farmer collapses because they haven’t kept their promise to repeal the estate tax ..the cycle will come full circle.

Christmas song by the Pogues

Social perception

I have a theory. An awful lot of what we find ‘attractive’ is determined by what we see our peers paying attention to while we’re growing up. I mean during the formative years of 13 to 29. Experts in human development call this a ‘cohort group’. So, to express my theory another way: Our social perception is determined by the cohort group we belong to. For example, the cohort group that came of age after World War II (during the fifties) had greater respect for people in authority and admired commanding-looking leaders. They elected a war hero for president. Larger-than-life actors like Sophia Loren and John Wayne captured their imagination. They also valued conformity. That’s why affluent-looking crooners like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin sold millions of records. However, the cohort group that came of age during the Vietnam War (the sixties and seventies) had lost respect for heroes and people in authority. Their attention turned more toward realistic-looking actors like Mia Farrow and Jack Nicholson ..as well as less affluent-looking musicians like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones (although they’re certainly affluent now). I hear evidence of this almost everyday. People of my father’s generation tell me they don’t find present-day actresses as appealing as the bombshells of the fifties. They say things like: “Hollywood just doesn’t make ‘em the way they used to” and point to reasons like “Today actresses suffer from mediocrity and over-exposure.” However, from the perspective of someone in my cohort ..that’s exactly what makes them appealing. What they call over-exposure ..I call peer-attention. And what they interpret as mediocre ..I see as realistic. That’s why I find actresses today equally, if not more attractive than actresses of the past. But hey, don’t take my word for it ..the film industry banks on it. The target group for moviemakers used to be people between the ages of 13 and 25. Not anymore. It is now people in their forties. They are less likely to stay at home playing X-box ..and they prefer watching movies with actors from their own generation. That’s why now, more than ever .. the screen-life of an actress lasts well into their forties and fifties. Look at the successful careers of Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Which brings me back to my theory ..greater realism equals greater appeal to moviegoers of my generation. Either that or I could say: “Hey, Hollywood must not have built ‘em to last in the fifties.” Or some such bull shyte.

The advantages of ADD

The kind of focused attention ordinarily required in a classroom is not always helpful overcoming obstacles outside the classroom. A wider focus of attention, which is usually associated with ADD, is actually more adaptive according to neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman [link]. And from what I’ve seen, I believe it ..! They found that when students are more open to distraction, they do better navigating a computer-simulated labyrinth than when they are focused and blocking out distractions (as seen on an fMRI). Students actually see and hear more .. finding their way faster by heuristic than by analytic reasoning. In other words, in many situations, discovering relationships between vague and loosely connected information is more advantageous than step-by-step analysis.

Florence and the machine

Biomimicry

Notes from Bioengineering Conference, Nov 25, Long Beach, CA

I like to follow developments that that are the result of ‘biomimicry’. Then again, I’m weird like that. However, I think it’s something that merits attention. Biomimicry is the practice of overcoming obstacles by seeing what works in nature. Naturalistic observation is just as valid as ‘laboratory observation’ in science. According to the speakers today, discovering how things work in nature has inspired breakthroughs in computer technology, renewable energy and regenerative medicine, just to name three.

Renewable energy: Biologists observing the motion of humpback whales have found more efficient ways to capture energy from the wind. They noticed how the saw-tooth bumps (tubercles) that line the edge of a whale’s fin help them perform better in slow-moving water. When they line the edge of blades on a wind-turbine with similar bumps; the blades rotate faster in response to slow-moving wind. This has led to the installation of more efficient and lower-profile ‘wind-mills’ in the desert outside of Palm Springs.

Regenerative medicine: Psychologists observing the natural development of language have made contributions to the field of regenerative medicine. They saw how children learn grammar as a result of social interaction ..with little or no coaching. When they simulate the social environment of early childhood; stroke victims make faster progress toward recovering language skills. This has led to the design of training-programs, hosted as video games ..that are more interactive and engaging. Results can be seen in speech performance as well as on MRI scans of the brain.

Closing remarks: Geoffrey Spedding, an engineer from USC, talked about limits to what we can learn from nature. He says “… the designs that come through evolution are just good enough to survive, that’s all. Nature has yet to come up with a decent wheel.” I had to disagree. In my humble opinion, evolution did produce an information-processing device capable of infinitely more ..the human brain. So, however indirect ..nature did invent the wheel.

Head trauma

Shrapnel from an IED went rattling around his skull ..and for the next 12 hours Paul thought the enemy had captured him. He couldn’t recognize faces or uniforms ..orders sounded foreign ..and foreign sounded menacing. He had to be restrained to keep from picking up a rifle and shooting members of his own platoon. Stateside, his comprehension has returned but he gets lost mid-sentence while talking. He struggles to remember where he left off. When prompting doesn’t work, I tell him to take his time ..just keep talking ..even if it’s something different ..whatever comes up. He manages to tell me what’s happening: “The words coming out of my mouth aren’t matching the ones in my head.” Then he starts crying. Something that never happened back there. Now he says even AT&T commercials make him cry ..he doesn’t know why. “The civilian world is pretty fucking surreal” he says. I imagine two different narratives ..one playing inside his head and another playing on the outside. He was a high school honor student ..but the VA says he was bi-polar when he enlisted and wasn’t traumatized by combat. It’s a catch 22 ..except they’re saying is you have to be crazy to want get in as opposed to being sane if you want to get out. I documented his symptoms ..got statements from his family physician (who says he was never bi-polar) .. attached copies of his high school records and got him a disability designation that entitles him to see a VA psychiatrist.

Breakfast of champions

I reach for the orange juice while reading the paper .. the ring on my finger catches the lip of a coffee cup and starts a chain reaction that sends coffee splashing over books, papers, notebook PC, clothes and deck. In the wink of an eye, breakfast turns into chaos. I quickly save the notebook ..and laugh. Everything else is dispensable. I hose down one part of the deck, move to another location and resume as though nothing happened ..except I’m more fully in the present than before. Kind of like I’ve been put on alert. Allows me to see how ephemeral events really are. A lapse in conscious, followed by disaster .. gets absorbed much quicker out here than it does on my carpet indoors.

Applied neuroscience

Brain surgeon Wilder Penfield [link] found that whenever he tugged at one place in childhood memory, he pulled the rest of childhood experience with it. His patients would report : “I can hear the sound of my mother’s voice calling me for dinner ..I smell the scent of fresh baked bread like I did then ..I see my mother waiting for me on the porch .. I feel her warmth ..I actually feel like I did as a child right now.” Psychologists see the same thing going on with their clients while they’re talking about present-day relationships. For example, when they report talking to somebody who has a voice or manner similar to one of their parents ..it often triggers the feelings they experienced in the presence of that parent. Could be feelings of warmth and pleasure ..or feelings of intimidation and submission. They may pass through these states during the day without even knowing it. What they do remember, however, is a feeling that tells them whether or not they enjoy someone’s company.

My first boss, Tony, was a commanding presence. He looked like a mafia don ..with a deep baritone voice and a quick temper. He shouted at people a lot and often in a disparaging manner. He intimidated my colleagues, which made them cringe in his presence. For some reason his behavior didn’t bother me. I even got a chuckle out of them. I think I figured out why ..and I believe I owe it to Dr Penfield. Although my father didn’t live with us very long, what I remember about him most is that he was gentle and reasonable. He would explain things I did wrong and never scolded. I don’t have memories of growing up with a ‘bully’ like many of my colleagues. Consequently, Tony didn’t evoke the same feelings in me as he did in them. I always figured there was a method to his madness and he always treated me with civility, while my colleagues always felt like they were getting a whipping.

Baths

Last night at the baths some of us were complaining about how much we were paying for our children’s education. It’s somewhere in the vicinity of $10,000 a year, even at the state colleges. One woman told us about a program called the ‘Santa Barbara Fund’ that pays for tuition ..but it turns out you have to be like a 2nd generation Santa Barbara native. Someone else said that even with a 4.0 GPA ..it’s almost impossible to get in these days. I mentioned that a lot of students applying to UC can overcome a low GPA .. even poor SAT scores ..by writing a compelling essay. Something describing some kind of hardship they had to deal with while growing up. That made another guy laugh and say it’s hard to imagine what kind of hardship anyone would have growing up in Santa Barbara. My first thought was to tell him that he’d be surprised, but decided against it and instead I said “Hey, colleges reward creativity ..” which made everyone laugh and start making up stuff:

"Mom and I are living in a station wagon down by the lagoon .."
“I had to take care of my ailing aunt Edna after school ..”
“I immigrated from Peru with 12 brothers and sisters
..mom worked as a housekeeper to put us through school”
“My parents are hippies and don’t believe in traditional schooling
..I ran a food co-op growing up”
“My parents were killed in a fire somewhere on the 14th floor ..”

Around this time I had to say goodnight and leave ..and had to laugh. Nobody noticed ..I could still hear them making up stories while I was walking away.

Sirens of Titan

Is it a coincidence that the Cassini space probe inexplicably stopped sending images as it was about to fly by Titan, one of the moons of Saturn? Titan is known to harbour conditions necessary for life. Another place considered to be a likely candidate for extraterrestrial life is Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. However, the canyons of Europa have eluded attempts at observation as well [link]. Early radio astronomers claim to have received signals, leaking from Titan, that suggest the presence of an extraterrestrial species. However, they are trapped and shielded from detection by parasitic aliens from another galaxy ..aliens who have been exploiting Titan’s resources for eons [link]. This explains why conditions there have deteriorated to an almost “pre-biotic” state. The result has been a sort of reverse-geo-evolution. In it’s day, Titan could have been just as hospitable a place as Earth is today.

Local buzz

Got a buzz with smokers at the high school stadium this evening – after completing my workout. Two teenagers big enough to be football players ..but probably weren’t. I could tell by their friendliness and total lack of defensiveness that they weren’t gang bangers. They laughed when they saw how long I would hold the smoke in. You don’t have to do that anymore. I have smoked with gang members before .. often enough that they recognize and trust me. They call me the hippie pot smoker ..and go “Hey, tell us some more of that weird-ass, trippy shit.” I figure if they’re going to get high ..they might as well know something about it. I am afraid that one day I'll run into a group of paranoid gang bangers ..which I have, come to think of it. It’s a forested area and I sometimes don’t see them until I run into them. As much as I might think it’s disarming to stop and share a smoke. They might think it wasn’t such a good idea to give that old guy a buzz. After I leave, they may go “..hey, wasn’t that the narc who took out Emilio ..?” ..and decide it might be safer if they took me out. I guess that makes me sound kinda’ paranoid too.

Narrative space

Proceedings from the Symposium on Extraterrestrial Psychology

Dr. Latimer: Language is nothing more than a stream of symbols that signify nothing until we recognize something we have either seen or heard before and can find it's meaning stored in our mental dictionary. In a plurality of worlds, without a storehouse of shared experience, efforts at communication would be an exercise in indecipherable gestures. Verbal communication is the manipulation of symbols to which meaning is assigned by culture. An important point to keep in mind my friends is that the events experienced by members of a culture over time are what make up the narrative thread of that culture.

Dr. Zhavern: When we look into space, we don’t see things as they are. What we see is a narrative thread winding it’s way through the cosmos ..a cosmos that may be shared by narratives other than our own. However, to it’s participants ..each narrative looks like the only cosmic game in town. Like language, we skew space to resemble something we’ve either seen, or heard before. It’s the only way we can come to grips with it.

Dr. Orloff: I think human consciousness is a fragmented and unstable process. It creates rapid models of factual and counterfactual worlds inside the brain for things it cannot observe ..but only infer. The brain keeps track of these different versions until only those that contribute to narrative coherence receive sufficient signal strength to survive while those leading nowhere dissolve into noise ..and disappear into non-narrative space .. all in an instance.

Dr. Pangloss: I think consciousness is made up of searchlights, projected from different mental versions of the world we create. They eventually converge to form concentric circles in the brain that illuminate the focal points that contribute most to narrative events, and fade rapidly at the periphery with fewer contributing points until things go black somewhere around the edges of non-narrative space.

My feeble brain ( hasn’t got a clue ): Are you saying that the narrative threads of extraterrestrials aren’t likely to uncoil very closely to ours ..(?)

Humboldt dot net

The sight of a sheriffs car approaching a grow site activates a network. Text messages are transmitted to owners who may or may not live within the county. Within minutes, timber trucks arrive on the scene to block access to the site. If they don’t get there in time to intercept the sheriff ..and the growers at the site, flashing their medical marijuana cards, can’t convince officers that 75 terraced acres of 8-foot tall plants are intended for personal use .. then arrests may be made. When that happens, you can be sure high-powered attorneys from Sacramento will arrive within the hour and the grower’s rights will prevail. You see, that’s how Humboldt dot com works ..it allows marijuana farmers to bring global forces to bear on local police incursions into the Emerald Triangle.

Eli

I saw Eli again for the first since middle-school. Both of us briefly attended the International school of Geneva (Ecolint). He was the son of a rich Indian jewelry trader. I remember it was the first time I ever tasted Godiva chocolates. Now he’s fond of repeating how he took over the family business ..watched it grow ..then lost it in a recent, one-sided divorce settlement and has had to start from scratch. Selling to rich, gay Saudis’ helped. Now he travels around the world looking for precious stones and customers for his jewelry business ..and playing polo. Africa, Thailand, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Geneva Switzerland are all on his trade route. Although Geneva is still where he calls home ..he’s hardly ever there so he said he was thinking about selling his house and buying a retirement home in Thailand. I didn’t know how to respond other than suggest he talk to his accountant first. His business extends to fine watches too, though I wasn’t able to get a price on a used Cartier ..and he wouldn’t sell me the one he was wearing. He said what I need is a Rolex Submariner. I asked him to keep an eye out for me ..preferably pre-owned. We’ll see. I don’t think he was here on business, which helps explain why it was such an enjoyable visit. It was good to see him again and I look forward to seeing him in Geneva next summer, which is probably why I wasn’t more enthusiastic when he was talking about selling his place.

Quality of understanding

“The meaning of a sentence is derived from the original words by an active, interpretive process. The original sentence that is perceived is rapidly forgotten and memory is for the information (meaning) contained in the sentence.” [link]

For years, neuro-linguists have studied what remains after we hear somebody speak. What they’ve come up with is something that resembles a three-dimensional network inside of our head. The network is made up of propositions (coded events), scripts (a sequence of coded events) and associated images and feelings. Although part of the network is constructed from the original sentence ..most of it is supplied by the past experience of the listener. What we come away with is a feeling of resonance and familiarity, based largely on our own beliefs and experience ..and not necessarily the meaning intended by the speaker.

Push that knot away

Noticing change

The four principles of Vipassana meditation are: 1) seeing clearly 2) being present 3) noticing change and 4) suspending judgment.

 I’m sitting on the beach, reminding myself to be more mindful and notice change. I mean changes in my head as well as changes in surf conditions. It’s hard to tell my thoughts are changing much ..they don’t pass cleanly. I grab hold of one and it forms a loop. I enjoy hearing the loop so much, I play it until it becomes background noise. It doesn’t go away. I see a flock of pelicans go by and hear a loop that sounds like: “Whoa, how prehistoric-looking ..what does Gina call them? Predators of the sea.” I ask myself when I last saw Gina.  Esalen, 2008. I’ve been playing that loop for almost three years now..?! I return to the present. I hear sea lions barking and go: “Wonder whose boat they’re going to scuttle next ..?” I remind myself I’m sitting on the beach ..scuttling is in the future ..I’m in violation of the second principle. I notice people going by: “Wonder how I look.” Then I'm like, WTF, who cares ..no one’s looking ..I’m just sitting on the beach for chrissake. I tell myself to calm down. Self-consciousness is a remnant of tribal past. If you didn’t look cool, you risked banishment. A consequence that probably hasn’t occurred for over 20.000 years now ..or perhaps occurs on any given day in high school. But now I'm just playing  another loop ..a rationalization loop to help me feel less neurotic. These loops get built-in and they attract more content over time. It’s hard to tell they were just passing thoughts once.

Extraterrestrial psychology

Astrophysicist Gregory Benford says we need to consider extraterrestrial economics when looking for signals from outer space. He suggests SETI narrow down its search to what we can reasonably expect extraterrestrial to achieve at such great distances ..assuming they’re not omnipotent. I applaud him for his pragmatism, however I think we also need to consider extraterrestrial psychology if we are to expect a reasonable chance of successful contact. Otherwise, I don’t see how we hope to achieve any kind of meaningful communication. Since we have no basis from which to conceive of the extraterrestrial mind, I think we have to start with something we can observe ..and I believe that would be us.

Psychologists already know that rational thought is a spatio-temporal process. It’s powerful but limited to weighing evidence about the physical universe. Other-worldly experience is out-of-scope. I believe this would also apply to the thought processes of any aliens we encounter. First, we’d only know we’ve encountered them if they share the same spatial-temporal dimension as us. Second, those we do meet would have to have some way of processing information about this shared dimension that is similar to ours. In other words, like us .. they would also have to integrate sensory information into a coherent model of the world they inhabit. So, I believe the first step in contemplating extraterrestrial life is to better understand our own. I mean, lets face it .. at this point it’s all we got.

Science tells us that knowledge is often knowledge of differences. Given that the human brain is tuned to receive only a narrow band of information available on earth, which is further constrained by culture ..I’m not sure it’s safe to assume that the alien mind is similarly tuned. They do not share the same background. We know that human perception is based on background information as much as information from the present ..and that the brain integrates information selected by the senses with information available in memory to create a coherent whole. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect extraterrestrials, who do not share our planetary history, to perceive our surroundings the same way we do. The way I’ve heard it explained best goes something like this:

“We could try and introduce ourselves to them ..but all they might see is a sparse dusting of energy waves occurring in a vacuum ..with some probability of identity based on their backgrounds ..not ours.”

Presented at the ~> SB Institute for Consciousness Studies

Gold coast

Beautiful autumn day. Sunlight passes horizontally through the eucalyptus trees and turns to gold ..I’m fully in love with this time of year. Out on the deck, the air is perfectly still ..there’s no breeze coming from any direction. Makes me think about the waves I’m missing on the beach. I pop a couple tabs of ginseng ..hop into the alfa ..turn up Blind Faith and pull way too far into traffic lanes on Anapamu Street. Real swift. I pop it into reverse and swing my head around when I realize the cars have stopped to let me through. I proceed ..giving them a courtesy wave .. then head around the Milpas bend. I pass by the marquis for the County Bowl ..and remind myself to keep an eye on the road. I pass by Trader Joe’s ..giving the right of way to cars already in the circle ..and shoot out on highway 101 ..listening to Steve Winwood singing ‘Sea of Joy’. I exit almost immediately on Olive Mill ..downshift to 15 mph on Channel Drive and check out the tide and the surf and the sun shining on the water. Perfect glassy conditions with crisp, waist-high waves peeling off Hammonds. I pull over ..grab my Churchills’ ..knowing that the fins of choice now days are Vipers ..feeling a slightly stupid sense of brand loyalty. I spend five minutes on the sand doing breathing exercises and sizing up the situation. I take a running start .. dive into an oncoming wave and surface on the backside feeling free ..like the wave washed over my brain and removed all constraints .. putting me in perfect condition for whatever happens next.

PTSD

The military is known for instilling leadership and teamwork ability ..skills that battle conditions can quickly take away. According to a Rand study, nearly one third of all returning troops suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury. Some of them show up at student services where I see them. James was part of a tank crew. On a hot day in Iraq ..they left the hatch open. That’s when a grenade blast slammed his head against an iron plate. At home, he enrolled in college using his GI benefits. However, crowded classrooms make him feel trapped and panicky. When he tries to contain these feelings, he finds he can’t make sense out of what the instructors are saying. Answering a question is like trying to find the answer to a riddle. He mumbles and strains to put together a coherent sentence ..and hopes he’s somewhere in the ballpark. I referred him to the VA for therapy. A short time later he quit school and went looking for a job. He hoped the skills they taught him in the service would help. Unfortunately, many employers told him they couldn’t accommodate time off for therapy. When I talked to him about it, he said he didn’t think that was the real reason. “They hire the disabled all the time.” He says “Guys that need just as much time off as I do.” “No, it’s more like they’re afraid I’ll go postal or something. Head-cases make them nervous.”

Territorial dispute

My neighbors across the creek have finally defeated Aaron’s efforts to live in the house that he built. It’s a beautiful Spanish-style residence that sits perched on the canyon just back from the creek. It has masonry-white walls, red tile roof, hardwood floors ..and no electricity. My neighbor Susan has kept him in court fighting for an electrical easement for so long now that he can’t afford to live there anymore. I like Aaron and I think it’s sad, really. At first I thought it was a case of extortion ..offering him easement rights in exchange for money or his first-born. I went on a long screed about this in a journal entry last year [link], if anyone’s interested.

Anyway, I have a new theory. I think it’s a tragic case of misperception. I believe it’s what happens when a strong-willed, powerfully-focused neighbor tries to negotiate a property agreement with a contractor who suffers a profound attention deficit. Aaron, the contractor, can’t stay on topic long enough to reach an agreement ..any kind of agreement. Susan gets frustrated and believes he’s taking her for a ride. I’ve actually heard her say things like “He talks in circles, purposely avoiding the issue, saying one thing then another .. he’s been bull-shitting me for so long, I don’t believe a word he says anymore.” Aaron, on the other hand, throws up his hands and tells me he has no idea what she wants. Susan says all she wants him to do is repair a shared driveway if he’s going to have to dig a trench through it in order to reach an underground utility. I don’t think Aaron can track what she’s saying long enough to grasp this. He can’t figure out whether she wants him to re-model her house ..re-surface the street ..scrap the project ..or leave a duffel bag filled with hundreds of thousand of dollars in an airport locker. He complains that she’s got him in a Catch-22. “She won’t let me go underground and she won’t let me go overhead” he says. “There used to be a pole on her property with wires leading to my property, but she conspired with the city and California Edison to have them removed so she could put me in the situation I’m in right now where she’s calling all the shots. I think she’s a sick greedy control-freak..! Don’t you ..?” I don’t know about that ..but I do know my head starts to spin whenever I try talking to Aaron about anything specific. I try asking him how long the trench would have to be ..and he tells me how long he’s been living in Santa Barbara (he’s fourth generation). I ask him to show me where the underground hook-up is so I can see for myself ..and he points to where the pole used to be and tells me he’s been robbed.